Researchers Discover The Most Creative Time of Day

Creativity is least likely to strike in the afternoon, according to a survey that suggests office workers have little chance of solving problems after lunch. A poll of 1,426 people showed that a quarter of us stay up late when seeking inspiration. Taking a shower or just sitting in the bathroom proved to be a popular way of getting the creative juices flowing. The survey found that 10:04pm was the most creative time, while 4:33pm was the least. I'll think of something funny to write here later.

Comments

World of Warcraft Time!!!

[mfh]

FUCK IT. I'm going home!!!!

(And I'm only working between 10pm and 1am from now on!)

Because I'll be more productive, I can get away with only working for 3 hours.

My new World of Warcraft schedule will be as follows:

8am-1pm (World PvP & farming)
2pm-9:59pm (BG premades & Arenas)

With WotLK I won't need to worry about stupid 25man raid times ...which are such a waste of time anyway -- for all my efforts in T6 content I get to replace it all in 3 weeks! x.x

Wait a minute... it's 4:30pm and I just thought of this brave new strategy. OH SH-

Re:World of Warcraft Time!!!

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

(And I'm only working between 10pm and 1am from now on!)

Because I'll be more productive, I can get away with only working for 3 hours.

Lunch time!!! Cya.

My Take

[fyngyrz]

Honestly, the most creative times I've experienced have been driving, both with and without passengers, on trips in the two to five hour range. I live in NE Montana, and there are plenty of such trips that offer few distractions (other traffic, road signs or lights, other roads.)

Sometimes I talk to my passengers; sometimes to myself. I go over the subject matter this way and that, and I try to use metaphors to gently prod myself into seeing other angles (by pushing the metaphors until they either break, register completely, or actually show me something.)

My sweetheart, who is both brilliant and kind enough to let me talk technically at her for considerable lengths of time, assists by letting me go through this process:

I'll pick something that either simply seems to need work or is an actual problem, and I'll explain to her exactly how I see the issue at the moment, complete with explanations of why I don't do this, or why I did that. Sometimes - not always by any means, but a reasonable number of times - I run down into a splutter, asking myself... "Why? Why did I do that? Uh... " or "man, that sure could have been done better..."

Which is followed by pulling over and making a note for later. :-)

The thing is, she's not technical (in my field) so I have to explain everything, pretty much. Metaphors help a lot too. But because she's actually paying attention, there's no getting away with hand-waving. I find that many times, inspiration lurks in areas I've discarded as no longer worthy of much (if any) attention. This process forces the issue.

Time of day doesn't seem to matter in my case. Coffee, however, is definitely involved.

We do this for management of our businesses as well; we have a couple retail operations, a software store, a lingerie store (stockings, mostly), a martial arts studio and a portrait photo business, plus I do some consulting here and there. We do a lot of juggling, and it helps to rattle ideas around in an unstructured environment. With the cell phones off!!!

å

Re:My Take

[HTH NE1]

The thing is, she's not technical (in my field) so I have to explain everything, pretty much. Metaphors help a lot too. But because she's actually paying attention, there's no getting away with hand-waving.

Indeed, talking to a human is much better than "talking to the [teddy] bear" as it is called here in that a human pays attention. And talking to a human that doesn't know the subject has its own benefits, as Douglas Adams pointed out:

"There really wasn't a lot this machine could do that you couldn't do yourself in half the time with a lot less trouble," said Richard, "but it was, on the other hand, very good at being a slow and dim-witted pupil."

Reg looked at him quizzically.

"I had no idea they were supposed to be in short supply," he said. "I could hit a dozen with a bread roll from where I'm sitting."

"I'm sure. But look at it this way. What really is the point of trying to teach anything to anybody?"

This question seemed to provoke a murmur of sympathetic approval from up and down the table.

Richard continued, "What I mean is that if you really want to understand something, the best way is to try and explain it to someone else. That forces you to sort it out in your own mind. And the more slow and dim-witted your pupil, the more you have to break things down into more and more simple ideas. And that's really the essence of programming. By the time you've sorted out a complicated idea into little steps that even a stupid machine can deal with, you've certainly learned something about it yourself. The teacher usually learns more than the pupil. Isn't that true?"

"It would be hard to learn much less than my pupils," came a low growl from somewhere on the table, "without undergoing a pre-frontal lobotomy."

BTW, I wouldn't suggest you compare your sweetheart to a very slow, dim-witted pupil. Certainly not to her face.

routine numbs the soul

[seanadams.com]

Well in absolute terms it might be "10:04 pm", but really it's just whatever time of day that all your usual distractions are gone and you've forgotten for a moment what a boring life you lead, but you're not tired enough to sleep yet. Inspiration can only strike when you're energized and your mind is clear and receptive. Far too few people appreciate what a toll the 9-5 shcedule takes on one's creativity. If you ever get a couple months off work/school for any reason, try sleeping only when you're tired and eating only when you're hungry. I did this for six months straight one time, and although ultimately I was exhausted, it was the most creative and rewarding period in my life. It felt absolutely bizarre to be rotating around the clock on a schedule of 20 hours awake followed by 8 hours of sleep, but man did I get a lot of stuff done! Now I'm on powerful sedatives so I can hold down a "normal" existence, stay out of jail/hopsital etc... but what fun I had back in the day. :)

Re:routine numbs the soul

[ookabooka]

I get extremely creative during the beginning of a manic phase (I'm bipolar). I know full well what it feels like to have creativity, have it go hay-wire (not make much sense) and then feel dumb (depressed). For me, my creativity is best when I'm well rested, under little stress, and enthused about what I am doing. Too little sleep and my ideas start to make less and less sense and are less practical which just frustrates me and increases my stress level; I've also found that sleep helps with thinking outside the box. Being enthused about whatever you are doing can be tricky, it's all about attitude and how you approach the problem. Writing a program that controls various stages of a sewage treatment plant? Instead of being bummed out look at it differently: how many computer programs are there that perform the same function? I bet I could make something that's more efficient and better documented. . .Whatever you do, don't sacrifice your health for a burst of creativity.

Currently I'm depressed, so I'm sure my post could have been much more creative and charismatic had I posted it a few months ago :-D

Yuck

[Itninja]

Having "sitting in the bathroom" and a reference to one's "creative juices" in the same sentence kind of grosses me out for some reason.

4:20

[Daveznet]

Sounds about right, right after 4:20 people usually tend to get lazy and just not do work in general.

Siesta

[Anonymous Coward]

Some cultures have figured out the low point and adjusted their whole day around it. My biological clock agrees. I find my energy levels and creativity at their lowest sometime between 2-4pm. It is almost a depression. Best to nap through it.

I peak emotionally and creatively at dusk. Something about the night coming on just starts it. I stay this way until I go to sleep. Best time for coding, thinking something out, or just plain enjoying music, movies or reading. You do must make it a point of stopping at a reasonable time, as your whole next day is wrecked without a solid nights sleep.

Research: Uncyclopedia worker interruptions costly

[David Gerard]

YOUR DESK, Your office (Work) -- The chances of you finishing writing this article without getting interrupted or distracted are slim.

U.S. office workers get interrupted on the job as often as eleven times per hour, costing as much as $588 billion in paid time lost to open content production each year. The digital communications that were supposed to make working lives run smoothly -- cc'ed email jokes, Internet porn and chatting up that hottie in the next office by IM -- are actually preventing people from getting critical tasks like writing Uncyclopedia or Wikipedia accomplished.

The typical office worker is interrupted every three minutes by a phone call, e-mail, instant message or other distraction. These take up 2.1 hours of the average day -- 28 percent -- with workers taking an average of five minutes to recover from each interruption and return to their original gag-writing or witty picture editing, or querulous talk page arguments and arbitration cases about the correct format for subheadings on articles about disused former US highways. The problem is that it takes about eight uninterrupted minutes for our brains to get into a really creative state.

From online shopping at work to planning the office holiday party, workers are bombarded with distractions. "It's certainly a recipe for even less writing getting done," said a typically bone-idle and parasitical Uncyclopedia timewaster. "It's 'There's my BlackBerry. What time is it in Kittenhoeffer right now? How many phone calls did I get? Can I win the sales office spider solitaire competition?' It's a lot of productive timewasting turned to useless 'productivity.' People like the convenience and possibilities that this technology affords them when they want to use it, but that doesn't increase the average quality of Wikipedia or pump up the funneh on Uncyc!"

Still another study found a group of workers interrupted by e-mail and telephones scored lower on an IQ test than a test group that had smoked marijuana. Unfortunately, EPA regulations still forbid bong hits at one's desk, even when trying to fix one's makefile.

There is a mini rebellion under way, however. Desperate for some quiet time to think, people are coming up with low-tech strategies to get away from all their technology. "If you don't have that sort of free time to dream and muse and mull, then you are not being creative, by definition. I find hiding in the server room with my laptop is a good place to work on witty tales of Britney Spears flashing her lunch at paparazzi."

The problem appears to be getting worse. A study by Wikia earlier this year found that 62 percent of British Uncyclopedians are addicted to their e-mail -- checking messages during meetings, after working hours and on vacation, hoping to get their funny take onto UnNews first.

"If I wanted to work," said the user, "hell. I'd get a job."

(original link)

that old saying

[Lord Ender]

Early to bed and early to rise makes Jack miss out on his peak creativity period.

While this is in absolute terms...

[CaptainPatent]

it would be interesting to see what a shifted sleep schedule does to this. Personally I have a very flexible work schedule and generally wake up between 11 AM and noon and go to sleep between 3AM and 4AM.

I actually feel the most creative around the 3-4PM area (which would be equivalent to most people's 10AM whereas around 7 or 8PM I start dragging serious amounts of creative ass unless I'm highly caffeinated.

I'm not saying that me alone shows this is relational to the time you normally wake up, but it would be interesting to find that out also.

Remove stimuli

[jedrek]

This may or may not work for other people, but I too find that my most creative moments are in the shower... because there's no new stimuli there. The rest of the time, I'm usually getting information from somewhere: listening to the radio in the car, watching TV while I wash the dishes, etc. Those 15-25 minutes I'm in the shower, nothing else is happening and my mind wanders. That's when ideas form and it's quiet enough in there for them to be heard.